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Ageing between Gerontology and Biomedicine

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Abstract

Over the past two decades, public interest in the basic biological processes underlying the phenomenon of ageing has grown considerably. New developments in biotechnology and health maintenance programmes appear to be forging new relationships between biology, medicine and the lives of older people. A number of social scientists describe the process as the ‘biomedicalization of aging’. In this article, we argue that contemporary biogerontology, an important sub-field of gerontology that could be construed as the primary actor in the process of ‘biomedicalization’, should be regarded instead as advancing a critique of biomedicine. We then provide a genealogy of the critique and close the argument by pointing to sources of uncertainty within biogerontology, which should be taken into account in any further studies of the relationship between biology, medicine and the lives of older people.

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Notes

  1. 1 Defining biogerontology, especially in relation to the ‘anti-ageing’ movement and medicine, is fraught with difficulties and ambiguities (Fishman et al., 2008; Juengst et al., 2003), but we hope that the account we provide here goes some way toward clarifying differences.

  2. 2 The interview was conducted in the context of the ESRC funded project ‘Boundary work, normal ageing and brain pathology’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, 32 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HN, UK

    Tiago Moreira (corresponding author)

  2. Department of History, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YG, UK

    Paolo Palladino

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  1. Tiago Moreira
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  2. Paolo Palladino
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Moreira, T., Palladino, P. Ageing between Gerontology and Biomedicine. BioSocieties 4, 349–365 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1745855209990305

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